For several seconds, nobody moved after Naomi said the words.
Gone.
The word seemed too small for what it meant.
Luna still had one hand resting against my chest from the kiss interrupted moments earlier. I felt her fingers tighten through my shirt.
“Intercepted how?” she asked.
Naomi kept the phone pressed to her ear, listening to someone on the other end.
“Two vehicles blocked the transport van near the interstate ramp. One officer is being taken into surgery. The other has a concussion.”
“Were the attackers identified?”
“No.”
“Voss was handcuffed.”
“Apparently not for long.”
Luna stepped away from me.
The transformation was immediate. The woman who had been crying thirty seconds earlier disappeared behind the disciplined executive I had first met in that office.
But I knew the difference now.
The control was not absence of fear.
It was what she built around fear.
“Call Victor,” she said.
Naomi hesitated.
“He’s still in the hospital.”
“Call him anyway.”
“I already did.”
Luna looked at her.
“He’s on his way.”
“Of course he is.”
Ten minutes later, the penthouse became a command post again.
Naomi sat at the dining table with three phones and a laptop. Federal investigators called twice. Sterling’s legal team called four times. Martin contacted me after seeing the alert and demanded to know whether I was somewhere secure.
I looked around Luna’s glass-walled penthouse.
“Define secure.”
“Adam.”
“We have security.”
“Last time you had security, somebody put cameras outside your bedroom.”
“That was before Victor changed everything.”
“Very comforting.”
He made me promise not to leave the building.
I promised.
Then immediately regretted it.
Thomas called next.
He was still in Texas with Mom.
His voice changed when I told him.
“Voss won’t run.”
“That seems like exactly what he’s doing.”
“No.”
“What do you mean?”
“If he wanted to disappear, he’d already be somewhere nobody could reach him. He spent his life building routes for that.”
“So why escape?”
“To finish whatever he thinks remains unfinished.”
I looked at Luna.
She heard.
“What remains?” she asked.
Thomas was quiet.
“That’s what worries me.”
Luna sat at the edge of the table.
“The archives are being turned over.”
“I know.”
“Celeste’s drive is in federal custody.”
“I know.”
“Naomi survived.”
“Yes.”
“You survived.”
“For now.”
I hated those two words.
Thomas continued.
“Voss does not think like someone defending himself anymore.”
“How does he think?”
“Like someone erasing an old ledger.”
One name at a time.
I looked toward Naomi.
Luna did too.
Naomi noticed.
“Please don’t start looking at me like that.”
“Like what?” Luna asked.
“Like you’re about to assign me three bodyguards and move me to Canada.”
“Two bodyguards.”
“Luna.”
“Three if you continue arguing.”
Naomi looked at me.
“You encouraged her?”
“I married her before realizing the full administrative consequences.”
“Temporary marriage,” Naomi said.
Luna and I glanced at each other.
Naomi caught it.
Her eyebrows rose.
“Oh.”
“Not now,” Luna said.
“Definitely not now.”
But a faint smile crossed Naomi’s face before it disappeared.
At 4:12 a.m., Victor arrived.
His left arm was immobilized in a sling. His face looked gray from pain and exhaustion.
Luna stared at him.
“No.”
“Good morning.”
“You were shot.”
“Yes.”
“Go back to the hospital.”
“No.”
“That was not a request.”
Victor lowered himself carefully into a chair.
“You are not my employer in medical matters.”
“I am your employer in every matter.”
“Not according to my contract.”
I almost smiled.
Luna did not.
Victor opened his laptop.
“Voss had help.”
“We gathered that.”
“Professional help.”
He showed us images from highway cameras.
Two dark vehicles.
Covered plates.
Coordinated approach.
“They disabled the transport vehicle electronically before boxing it in.”
“Inside access?” I asked.
“Possibly.”
“Federal?”
“Could be private.”
Luna leaned closer.
“How many people?”
“Four visible. Maybe six.”
“That means Voss still has an organization.”
“Yes.”
I thought of all the years he had spent gathering favors, secrets, compromised people.
“How many?”
Victor looked at me.
“We don’t know.”
That was worse.
At dawn, federal agents arrived.
They advised us to relocate.
Luna refused.
Their lead agent, Marisol Reyes, was perhaps forty-five, compact, calm, and clearly unimpressed by wealthy people saying no.
“Ms. Sterling, your residence has already been compromised once.”
“Security has been replaced.”
“Voss knows this address.”
“He knows every address connected to my family.”
“Then we move you somewhere he doesn’t know.”
Luna folded her arms.
“He knew where Adam’s father had been hiding after twenty-two years.”
Reyes had no immediate answer.
“That is exactly why improvising your own security is dangerous.”
“We are not improvising.”
She looked at Victor’s sling.
“Your security director was shot yesterday.”
Victor said, “Technically the day before.”
Reyes turned.
“That was not helpful.”
He nodded.
“Agreed.”
Eventually they compromised.
Federal protection would coordinate with Victor.
Luna, Naomi, and I would remain together temporarily.
Derek and Eleanor would receive separate protection.
Thomas and Mom would be moved from the Texas hospital into a secured rehabilitation facility under assumed names until Mom was strong enough to travel.
I hated that.
So did Thomas.
Mom, apparently, found it entertaining.
“She says the alias makes her feel like a criminal,” Thomas told me when he called again.
“What alias?”
“I’m not telling you over an unsecured phone.”
“That is an irritatingly reasonable answer.”
“She suggested ‘Duchess.’”
“That sounds like Mom.”
“She also hit me with her cane.”
I went quiet.
Thomas did too.
“Are you okay?”
“Yes.”
“Did you deserve it?”
“Yes.”
That answer made me laugh.
“Then I’m staying out of it.”
“Smart.”
A silence followed.
Then he said, “Adam.”
“What?”
“I know this is not the time.”
“That sentence means you’re going to say something terrible.”
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“Everything I missed.”
My throat tightened.
“This is definitely not the time.”
“I know.”
“But?”
“If Voss gets to me before we finish this, I don’t want the last thing between us to be unfinished.”
Anger rose immediately because fear was beneath it.
“Stop.”
“Adam.”
“No. You spent twenty-two years deciding for everyone else what risk they could tolerate. You don’t get to prepare a farewell speech because it makes you feel responsible.”
Thomas went silent.
I continued.
“You’re alive. Stay alive. Then you can apologize properly when I have enough time to be furious.”
A sound escaped him.
Half laugh.
Half something else.
“All right.”
“Good.”
“And Adam?”
“What?”
“I’m proud of you.”
I nearly ended the call.
Instead I said, “Stay alive.”
Then I hung up.
Luna was standing behind me.
“How much did you hear?”
“Enough.”
“I hate that everybody keeps having emotional conversations around you.”
“It is my house.”
“That excuse is getting old.”
She came closer.
“You were right.”
“About?”
“Thomas choosing sacrifice because it is easier than repair.”
I looked at her.
“That sounded specific.”
“My father did the same.”
“Richard didn’t disappear.”
“No. He hid behind responsibility.”
She looked toward the city beyond the glass.
“Every time he hurt someone, it was because Sterling required it. Every secret was for the family. Every compromise protected employees.”
“And now?”
“Now I hear myself making some of the same arguments.”
“You disclosed everything.”
“Yes.”
“That matters.”
“It doesn’t erase instinct.”
“No.”
She looked at me.
“You’re not going to reassure me?”
“Would you believe it?”
“No.”
“Then I’ll save the effort.”
A tiny smile.
“Thank you.”
By eight, the news had broken publicly.
GRAHAM VOSS ESCAPES FEDERAL TRANSPORT.
News trucks gathered downstairs.
Reporters connected Voss to Sterling within an hour.
By nine, the company’s stock had fallen eleven percent.
By ten, two clients suspended contracts pending investigation.
By eleven, the board called an emergency session.
Luna attended remotely.
I sat outside the study because she asked for privacy.
After thirty minutes, voices began carrying through the closed door.
One director wanted her suspended.
Another argued removing her would signal panic.
A third blamed her voluntary disclosure for accelerating the crisis.
Then Luna spoke.
Quiet enough that everyone else stopped.
“You are discussing optics while a man connected to decades of criminal conduct is missing after an armed extraction.”
Silence.
“If the board wants my resignation, request it formally.”
Nobody did.
“Then stop treating disclosure as the crisis. The conduct was the crisis. Hiding it made it worse.”
I smiled despite myself.
Naomi looked up from her laptop.
“You’re proud.”
“I’m avoiding commentary.”
“You’re terrible at it.”
The meeting ended.
Luna emerged.
“How bad?” I asked.
“Three directors hate me.”
“Only three?”
“Two are undecided.”
“Progress.”
“One wants my job.”
“Derek?”
She almost smiled.
“No.”
Her phone buzzed.
She checked it.
Then froze.
“What?”
It was a message from an unknown number.
No text.
A photograph.
Eleanor.
Sitting at a table in her Denver house.
The photo had clearly been taken through a window.
Timestamp: six minutes ago.
Luna immediately called her.
No answer.
Again.
No answer.
Victor was already moving.
“Federal detail?”
Naomi checked.
“They were outside.”
“Were?”
She refreshed.
Her expression changed.
“What?”
“They lost contact.”
Luna went pale.
Victor reached for his radio.
Then another image arrived.
Derek.
Standing beside his car outside Sterling headquarters.
Taken from across the street.
Timestamp: four minutes ago.
Then Naomi’s phone buzzed.
She stared.
“What?”
A photograph of her entering Luna’s building the previous night.
Three targets.
Three locations.
Voss was telling us something.
He could still see everyone.
Then my phone vibrated.
I knew before looking.
Mom.
Not a current picture.
An old one.
She was younger.
Sitting beside nine-year-old me at a birthday table.
Thomas stood behind us.
Red bicycle visible in the yard.
The same birthday Voss had mentioned at Blackwood.
Beneath the image was one sentence.
YOU ALL KEEP THINKING THIS IS ABOUT THE FILES.
My skin went cold.
A second message came.
It never was.
Luna read it over my shoulder.
“What does that mean?”
Thomas’s warning came back.
This started before Sterling.
Army intelligence.
Secrets.
Blackmail.
Voss had been collecting leverage long before Richard Sterling ever hired him.
I called Thomas.
No answer.
Again.
Nothing.
My pulse accelerated.
Victor said, “Federal detail is moving your mother and Thomas now.”
“Where?”
“They won’t disclose over open lines.”
“Can they reach them?”
“Yes.”
Naomi’s phone rang.
She answered.
Her face changed instantly.
“Adam.”
“What?”
She held the phone toward me.
Agent Reyes.
I took it.
“Where is my father?”
“We have a problem.”
Every muscle in my body tightened.
“What problem?”
“The rehabilitation unit was evacuated seventeen minutes ago after a fire alarm.”
“Was there a fire?”
“No.”
My hand tightened around the phone.
“Where’s Thomas?”
“We don’t know.”
“What do you mean you don’t know?”
“Your mother is safe.”
“And my father?”
“He separated from the detail during evacuation.”
I closed my eyes.
Of course he did.
He had not been taken.
He had left.
“He went after Voss.”
Reyes did not answer.
She didn’t need to.
Luna reached for my hand.
I looked at her.
Thomas had promised to stay alive.
He had broken the promise before the morning ended.
My phone buzzed again.
This time the message came from Thomas’s number.
One sentence.
Adam, I know where Voss is going.
Then another.
I have to finish what I started before he reaches you.
I called.
The phone was off.
Luna read the messages.
“Where is he going?”
I stared at the childhood photograph Voss had sent.
Red bicycle.
Birthday cake.
Texas backyard.
Then I saw what I had missed.
A man standing at the edge of the frame.
Mostly cropped out.
Military posture.
Young.
Watching.
Voss.
Behind him stood another man.
Thomas.
And between them, barely visible through the open garage, was a symbol painted on a metal storage case.
I had seen the same symbol recently.
In Thomas’s notebook.
Beside one location.
I opened the photograph Victor had made of the pages.
There.
A circle crossed by three lines.
Beside it, one phrase.
OLD RANGE — COLORADO.
Luna leaned closer.
“What is that?”
I looked at her.
“I think I know where Thomas went.”
Click here to continue reading: PART 18: Thomas Went Back to the Place Where Voss First Learned to Use Secrets as Weapons, and We Followed Against Every Warning
The Morning My Boss Closed Her Office Door, Opened a File About My Life, and Made an Impossible Offer
Part 17 of 26
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